Tips From The Experts At ‘Inbound 15’ [Infographic]

Last week we had the wonderful privilege of attending the Inbound 2015 conference in Boston, thanks to our friends at Hubspot. The list of keynote speakers and additional sessions were all very impressive, and informative. We took a lot of notes, but some of the tips that we found most inspirational, we turned into a series of infographics! Here are some of the tips from the experts.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin was the keynote speaker on the very first day of the Inbound conference and stated, “It might work, it might not work”. What he meant by this was that small business owners and really anyone undertaking a new campaign should keep in mind that what you do is not for everyone. Therefore, you shouldn’t stress out if your product or campaign is not liked by everyone, because a lot of the time only some people will appreciate what you do. What we took away from this is that if you are operating within a niche, chances are that some people will consider your product useless, and feel obligated to comment negatively about it. Seth suggests remembering that you can’t please everyone- and if you get discouraged because you are getting a couple of negative reviews here and there, well that’s normal.

Marc Maron

Marc Maron is a comedian and host of the Podcast series entitled WTF With Marc Maron. His talk at Inbound was set up as an interview (which is very fitting considering the style of his Podcast) and he discussed his experiences after being denied a position with SNL and how he was at a point of sheer desperation when he started his Podcast series. Marc interviewed (and continues to interview) a range of different professionals, comedians and public figures on his Podcast and states that, “Content is like crack”. What he means is that people can’t get enough of good content, and so by interviewing so many celebrities about their personal lives, he was providing his audiences with a form of content that satisfied their entertainment needs, but was also high informative about their lives. Good content can go a long way, and once you start creating it, people will keep coming back for more.

Aziz Ansari

Aziz Ansari spoke at Inbound about his new book entitled Modern Romanceand his experiences researching for the book. He mentioned the difference between today’s generation and their view on romance, and the views of an older generation who experienced their share of love during the 40s, 50s and 60s. At that time, many people based their future relationships on convenience of location- meaning that many people found the loves of their lives because they lived in the same town or village than them, or even in the same building. It made the decision process very easy, because these individuals were so limited in their frame of choice. However today, with apps like Tinder and OKCupid, there is a far wider range of possibility when it comes to finding a partner. The journey is no longer focused on finding a partner to start a family with, but rather a soulmate. Aziz said at Inbound that “When there is too much choice, it’s hard to make decisions,” and so content creators and business owners should consider setting limitations upon themselves, to make it easier to focus in on a particular subject. When something is too open-ended, it becomes extremely difficult to elaborate on it and write or talk about it.

Brené Brown

Brené Brown is known as a researcher and storyteller, and has a background in sociological research on the topic of vulnerability. She was a keynote at Inbound and says that it is ok for people to feel vulnerable because it comes from a place of extreme courage. Many start-ups and entrepreneurs follow the “Fail fast” rule, and Brené expresses that failure is inevitable, and when it happens, “You’re going down. Hard.” Rather than feeling discouraged and giving up when failure happens, however, Brené says that it is better to embrace the vulnerability, since sometimes it is necessary in order to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of success.

Sophia Amurosa

Sophia Amurosa is known as one of the leading women in business who found success before the age of 30. Her vintage clothing company, Nasty Gal saw an impressive growth, and during her talk at Inbound she spoke about the importance of perseverance, diligence and resilience. She is known as a badass and a boss, and did not take no for an answer as she was building her business. Sophia says that, “You’ll never get what you don’t ask for,” and that it is important to go out and talk to the people that could potentially help you in your career. Besides, if you don’t ask, the answer will always be “No” anyway.

Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink is a New York Times best-selling author and is known for his books To Sell Is Human and A Whole New Mind . Daniel talked at Inbound about what makes the perfect sales person, and expressed that many people believe that extroverts are the ideal sales people because they are so outgoing and “in your face”. However he states that this is not the case. Introverts aren’t perfect either, in fact they are just as bad as the extroverts. He says the best sales people are the ones in the middle- the ones who are sometimes extroverted but also have those moments of introversion. Why? Because they know when to talk and when to listen (extroverts have a hard time listening and introverts don’t like to talk much). Daniel states that “Ambiverts make the best sales-people” and that finding that balance between talking and listening is crucial if you hope to convince people to buy your product.

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Nadya heads marketing at Venngage and has been featured in Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, The Next Web, Forbes, Marketing Profs, Social Media Examiner and more. She also has a web-series called Drunk Entrepreneurs where she interviews different entrepreneurs who are finding success.